North Korean Leader, Thin and Limping, Returns to Assembly and Gains New Term

SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, returned to center stage in the North’s capital, Pyongyang, on Thursday when the country’s Parliament elected him to another five-year term. But the secretive government gave no clues, after months of questions about Mr. Kim’s failing health, as to which of his three sons would be prepared to succeed him.

State television showed Mr. Kim, 67, receiving a standing ovation as he walked, with a slight limp, into the session of the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly. In contrast to his former paunchy build, he looked gaunt and older, but he maintained his authority, returning the applause and motioning the delegates to be seated. He appeared to have difficulty using his left hand because of, doctors believe, a stroke he suffered last August.

It was the first major public appearance by Mr. Kim since his reported stroke, and it followed months of speculation about his grip on power.

The Assembly re-elected him chairman of North Korea’s most powerful ruling agency, the National Defense Commission. Also elected to the commission were Ju Gyu-chang, a senior defense industry official said to have led the project to launch a satellite, and Jang Song-taek, Mr. Kim’s brother-in-law. Although Mr. Jang had held relatively low ranks in the party hierarchy, he has long been considered the second most powerful man in the country. He is expected to play a crucial role in elevating one of Mr. Kim’s sons to the helm or even head a collective leadership should Mr. Kim die suddenly.

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In a still image taken from video, North Korean leader Kim Jong II arrived to attend the first session of Supreme People's Assembly on Thursday in Pyongyang.Credit
KRT, via APTN

With news of Mr. Kim’s re-election, North Korean media brimmed with lofty proclamations and patriotic songs praising him for “successfully” putting a satellite into orbit on board the rocket the North launched Sunday. The launching went ahead in defiance of the United States and its allies, who said it was designed to test a missile. Washington said the launching was a failure and that the satellite had not reached orbit.

Analysts say that the launching of the purported satellite, Kwangmyongsong-2, or Lodestar-2, a reference to Mr. Kim’s nickname in North Korea, was meant to meet urgent domestic needs as well as to win attention from the Obama administration.

The North’s rocket launching and its increasingly confrontational posture toward the United States and South Korea are widely seen here as a way of quashing rumors about Mr. Kim’s health and to show — to people at home and to adversaries abroad — that he is firmly in charge.

“What we see happening in the North is not an expression of confidence, rather it shows serious internal strain and uncertainty,” said Nam Joo-hong, a North Korea specialist at Kyonggi University in South Korea.

Mr. Kim is widely seen as having delayed anointing an heir because the two sons he most trusted were too young to lead a society that values maturity. “He must now hurry up,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute in Seoul.

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In a still frame taken from a North Korean state television broadcast on Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is seen applauding in Pyongyang.Credit
KRT, via Reuters TV/Reuters

Recent reshuffles at the organizational and propaganda departments of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea — the two party bodies Mr. Kim controlled while being groomed as successor in the 1970s and ’80s — signaled that a power transfer might have begun, Mr. Cheong said.

But any power shift will be gradual. For now, North Korea has redoubled its efforts to show that Mr. Kim remains at the helm, even if that means releasing photos and video that show North Koreans there is something wrong with their leader.

In a recent picture of him inspecting a swimming pool, Mr. Kim was clearly thinner and his facial skin seemed to be sagging — a far cry from the heroic images of him that decorate murals in every North Korean village.

On Tuesday, North Korea released the first video of Mr. Kim since his stroke. Shown visiting a pig farm in early August, Mr. Kim was gesticulating to workers with both hands.

Without explanation, the video jumped to late November and December, when he was shown in a parka and gloves. He kept his left hand in a pocket most of the time.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: North Korean Leader, Thin and Limping, Returns to Assembly and Gains New Term. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe